…mind talks…

Dance

At the time when I was completing my undergraduate studies, during my last two semesters, I was up round the clock doing my part-time job and drafting up plans and brainstorming ideas with my team to lay the foundations of my business. I also had to work on my senior project – which was, much to my pride, apparently the first actual human experiment to be conducted on-campus.

At that time, one of my juniors who was a foreign student would always hang out in my room because her rented room was too far from university. Sometimes she would bring another friend along with her baby. Most times she would turn the music on loud and walk around the house naked. Yes.

I also had another friend from a different faculty who would come every evening to ask me to help her with her assignments because her English sucked real bad. By real bad, I mean real, real bad. She did not understand what her lectures were about. She could not comprehend her assignments. She could not even remember what I taught her. I ended up going with her for days to the library just to help her with her assignments.

Okay, I was being quite helpful. Never did I express my tiredness or lack of time for my senior project. But as days caught on, I realized I was putting off a lot of my own assignments and postponing several deadlines – deadlines I set for myself. I began feeling as if I lost my value and energy. My hard work seemed to be running down the drain dealing with all the drama in the house.

Due to all the stress, I lost the job that had been feeding me for the past three years. I told my girlfriends no, I am sorry, but I cannot possibly help you anymore. But did they understand what I was telling them?

Well, I moved in with the one from the other faculty because she was willing to help me with the accommodation. But what I did not realize was that she did not even know how to send an email or write to her husband in English? I always wondered why the heck she could not write to him in their own native language? I also noticed that although I told her that I was quite busy with an exam the next day, she still asked me to help her with her presentations!

Oh, I hope you do not get into the same problem as I did. What did I do to solve the problem then? I scolded them vehemently. I also unfriended them. On top of that, I got up very early every morning at approximately 6AM, did my prayers, and then walked 500 meters to school. Every morning before the sun rose itself. I tried studying in the library… until my friend who couldn’t understand English turned up again out of nowhere to ask me to assist her! One day she even brought another friend who was having issues with her own project.

God bless my heart and my soul. Why was getting away from my girlfriends so important? I had definitely sworn myself out of lesbianism, to be sure. So why did I have to give them a hearty scolding every time and run away as if I were the thief?

Because it is very crucial for my subjective well-being. I needed a lot of time to think about more important matters, like my fees – I was graduating soon anyway.

Here I am talking to you on my video. And please, when you say no, please mean it. Don’t you dare laugh after saying it because there is nothing funny about the “No”. And no, I am not naked. (Photo credits to Alicia Leng)

Alone time. Hard, death-like situations are opportunities for growth, and to grow, you need to think. You need to rearrange your thoughts and give yourself a little peace of mind as you navigate yourself well. Even if you are not in a dead-end situation, you need some precious time for yourself. For growth. For self-care. That moves us to the next section.

Self-care. You only have all the time in the world to attend to every matter around you. Give yourself a little gift of time. Sip slowly over a hot cup of green tea, read your favorite detective novel, or simply do nothing for awhile. This leads to the next point.

Well-being. A holistic approach to self-care looks at not only proper functioning of the body, but also the well-being of the mind. We got a brain to think, not just for ourselves but also for others. This mass of grey matter, with all its fancy nucleus accumbens, mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways, and the stuff in your hippocampus (pardon my language) that puts you to making the right judgements – resembles other muscular tissues in the body, and requires consistent exercise to keep running. And as far as we help others do their thinking, we have to give ourselves a break to redirect our focus too.

Exercise. As mentioned earlier, self-care in the positive psychological perspective involves working out on a timely basis to keep physically and mentally fit. Join a dance class to get the entire body moving freely.

Opportunities for Self-development. Time is of essence, and the time in which we invest our time is very important. When you are already tied down with a long list of things to do, it’s okay to say no. Just say it. Don’t even feel obligated. You need time to fine-tune your strengths, because stars don’t grow overnight. They always emerge from the core of mysterious nebulae and take millennia to mature. In the same way, great ideas always form from muddled-up minds of a plethora of experiences, knowledge, and wisdom altogether. You just need to reorganize your thoughts so you don’t leave them hanging. When you mix the ingredients for a cake in a bowl, and then put the whole thing in the microwave, you’ll get a cake in the end. Of course however well it’s done requires all the love, care, and patience it needs too. So you need to be very clear to anyone who is begging for your attention while you are trying to make an amazing cake, to be able to concentrate on making such a nice cake.

Of course in reality the cake is you, and I bet you are sweet too. What about those girls who came into the picture from the start of the story – did they stop asking me the same goddamn question? No, they didn’t.

Poor girl.

Red Scarlet

PS.: No one could find any photographs of the naked girl, so pardon me.

The drones are hovering in the air, mind you. Be quiet, be still – make sure they do not spot you. Move stealthily across the corn field, swiftly, but surely. Lower down your head too, lest they spot you; but keep your ears prick. See well where the enemy lies; notice when he changes strategy. And when he does, act quickly – by all means, at the speed of light! Where you target the enemy …aim and shoot!

Do you hear the commotion from behind? Put your hand in your pocket …oh, there is only one grenade left! Never mind, throw it at the crowd anyway! It is not like I have a problem. Oh wait, the section of ground five yards away has a bunch of enemies. I shall throw my hand bomb at them.

Now let them burn, burn, burn. All almost according to plan. In my silent thoughts, I said to myself: We will win this war.

Okay, I get it. This time I will not talk too much, but rather I will sprint straight to the point. Hope I am too fast though.

The business zone is very much like a war zone. There are competitors sprouting everywhere. Yet sometimes, we form allies too. This is why you need to study your target well. Ask around. Do your research. Tabulate your results. Keep alert to any changes in the business environment. This is the one factor that you have to consider because it never stays static. Just like life it is ever flowing, reviberating in its own blood. When you are ready, however, make sure you are fully loaded – and you have reloads available at arm’s length. Then aim and fire.

The zone I am entering is filled with music. Beautiful music blasting from the speakers at the top notes. Much like the ones at Berlin and Livescape, but with a little twist in the purpose. Yes, we do have DJs from different parts of the world, we also feature EDM and trance music, we have fire spurting from tiny vents into the air, and we have food and drinks and party packs. We also have sports, extreme sports like skateboarding and other activities. Attendees to the event (who are aged from 10 up) are encouraged to participate in the various dance performances, particularly the flashmob that will take place in the afternoon. This event is called Electronic Dance Movement.

All these is really an effort to help the 7-billion-and-counting individuals know more about positive psychology, amidst the war and dread and pain that result from their own wars, be it the War for Life, the War for Justice, the War for Peace, the War for Rights, or the Inner War. That there is none other than themselves who have the sole power, the sole capability to change their own lives for the good, the better, and the best. I have spoken to a few doctors who are advocates for this extremely new branch in mental health to allow me to include the hashtag #PosPsy to link the event in the feeds.

There, of course, will be much, much more for me to give, that hopefully, more and more of the Generation Z will be exposed to. Me and my team – or crew, more like – plan to travel from country to country every year to spread the message, at all sorts of public sites imaginable. We even plan on hiring international artists to perform at our events some time soon in the future.

It is not like I have turned into Bad Blood, but, yes, this is how we do. We aim our target, drop our bomb, and then move on to the next site.

For me to accomplish my entrepreneurial dream and help my team members play their roles, I need some form of funding. The first event is stipulated to be held at Kuala Lumpur, the heart of the capital of Malaysia, and the costs amount to RM40, 000 for the one-day event. My team and I are in dire need of raising the amount to kickstart our event. Thus, I would be very appreciative of any sum, large or small. As a sign of gratitude, we will advertise your name on our advertisement materials, and also provide you with a token of appreciation. You can wire transfer to my personal Maybank account (account holder name: Ngiam Ai Leng Alicia; account no.: 1123 0806 1970) if you are interested in providing your kind help.

In the midst of the gooey mass of grey matter in the prefrontal lobe stands a huge army of Spartan soldiers with their spears sticking upwards in the air. They are prepared to fight, prepared to conquer malaise, to combat for Truth. For the mind is a wondrously dangerous place, and white lies are in constant battle with black lies and dirty little secrets. With a tweak of a passage of signals, the entire perception alters somewhat drastically. It gives birth to a thought, an idea, and though in its embryonic form, it still has the capability of enveloping the entire physique, covering the subtle pores of the skin with its vulnerable coat like myelineated sheaths of axons. It hydrates the thirsty soul; it instigates a certain craving for – a little cocaine, maybe? Fervently spreading throughout the entire breathing creature, it begins to speak aloud in the creature’s own voice. But how weak the mind is! Yet it is capable of intelligent choice.

Secret Garden. (Photo courtesy of Twitter)

A long time has past since I last published my work on WordPress.

It is a superficially busy time for me because, after this semester, I have only two more to go. Then I shall finally graduate. It is critically important that I do well during these last few months because I plan to sit for masters. Not only that I am working towards developing my own organizational objectives with a music business unit. It is not easy to do this single-handedly, but I am fortunate to be able to work with other entrepreneurs as well.

It truly is one last stage for me to get by. I admit it is tough because I am now handling everything by myself, from tuition fees to organization structure to this little powerful drug – writing – that I do every now and then. I am consummated by exams and university projects and meeting new people. Every now and then I am hurled into Dreamland, where I am trapped in an extremely tall tower waiting for my knight in his white horse to come around and save me of course. At the very same moment, Time is graciously ticking away.

It definitely is fun to form mutual friendships with people and organizations, especially those who would be able to help out in the event that it is necessary. As part of entrepreneurship all that stress that comes along with it – hopefully it ends successfully. I want it to be a success of course! It meaning everything. Which encompasses education, my job, my friends, my family, my life – everything, god damn it. All these are the work of a lifetime. These are all my Paradise.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Where knowledge seeks to understand, imagination strives to satisfy its curiosity.

If we could turn back in our journey, wherever we may be leading ourselves to, and look at the origins of the term, it would mean a “lettered person” in Old French. On the surface level, art is about utilizing creativity and imagination to come up with something innovative, fun, and, well, creative. Most of all, to me it means a method of self-expression, the work itself symbolizing happiness, anger, jealousy, hatred, and madness. This does not come easy to all of us.

We express ourselves in various ways. Some of us spin around the dance floor, some of us write songs – but some of us also prefer to keep to ourselves and let the voices in our head do the talking. And it comes out; it comes out in shades of red, blue, yellow, and orange. At times it comes out in streaks of the pen as the nib scribbles through a blank sheet of paper. It gets petrifying, once in a while, especially when the mind is doing all the talking, and the poor, unfortunate pen has nothing to do but etch out the mind’s jibberish.

Hell yes, writers are artists too. Writers of every kind dances along the lines of words, making music in his own way – the words find a certain kind of harmony, a certain kind of tango, with a high or low pitch, and then connect themselves in coherent flow. Just catch a glimpse of Shakespeare’s work; how meticulous it was written, that till now, hundreds of years later, people are still scratching their little round heads over the meaning behind them all.

Anyway, there goes…. I have been “wearing” this hairdo for nearly a week by now – and it makes me strangely cool. At least that is the way I think. What do you think, anyway? Is it not a spectacular piece of art? Haha.

Breaded [sic] hair. (Photo credits to Alicia Ai Leng)

Artists have the capacity to imagine to greater heights. They have the ability to “wow” the average human being, because that is just what they do. Even the most famous inventors are artists, too.

So, yeah. Writers – we are cool just like that. We are bold. Brave. Courageous. In our own silent way.

PS.: Apparently my body needs a bit more body-rocking to get going. Just saying.

All right – I shall admit it. This is what I do nearly every night. Everyday too, almost. My imagination finds me standing in the middle of nowhere (or somewhere, if you would like). It is definitely a barren land that bears no fruit and offspring, because in my longing for quietness and alone-ness, there is no one else.

It is the tipping point of the id, the breaking line between ego and the superego. Where the self is able to completely perceive the presence of every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there… but does not give a damn.